Children’s decontextualized talk in ethnically and socioeconomically diverse communities in the U.S., China and Norway

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Abstract

Talk that goes beyond the here and now (i.e., decontextualized talk, henceforth DT; Rowe, 2012) is a strong predictor of children’s language development and academic skills in preschool and throughout middle childhood (Uccelli et al., 2017). This symposium discusses four studies examining children’s use of DT in diverse ethnic and socioeconomic (SES) communities in the U.S., China and Norway. Study 1 explored relations between features of DT and language and literacy skills in Latino kindergarteners from low-income households in the U.S. Syntactic features of DT (e.g., frequency of determiners, conjunctions) related to Latino children’s language but not literacy skills. Study 2 longitudinally investigated the use of DT in mixed-SES White, Black and Hispanic parent-child conversations from age 14 to 54 months in the U.S. Ethnic differences were found in certain types of DT (i.e., future talk) but not others (i.e., past talk). Study 3 compared the use of DT in European American and Chinese parent-preschool dyads from middle-income households. Cross-cultural differences in the amount and content of DT were found; Chinese parents’ DT positively related to their children’s narrative production. Study 4 explored syntactic and lexical features of DT and contextualized talk in teacher-preschool dyads from mixed ethnic/SES in Norway. DT was more syntactically and lexically advanced than contextualized talk. Together these studies highlight substantial variation in the use of DT within and across ethnic/SES communities and relations between DT and children’s language, thereby advancing our understanding of the mechanisms through which DT influences language development.

Sub Unit

• Language, Communication

Chair

• Diana Leyva, University of Pittsburgh

Individual Presentations

• Associations between Latino kindergarteners’ decontextualized talk during personal narratives and their language and literacy skills - Presenting Author: Diana Leyva, University of Pittsburgh; Non-Presenting Author: Yarelin Rivera, Davidson College; Non-Presenting Author: Ann Foxworth Bernhardt, Davidson College; Non-Presenting Author: Kathryn Anne Leech, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

• Spontaneous use of past/future personal-narrative talk in the everyday home language of parents and 1-5-year-olds - Presenting Author: Rebecca Frausel, Pennsylvania State University, Erie; Non-Presenting Author: Lindsey Engle Richland, University of California - Irvine; Non-Presenting Author: Susan Cohen Levine, University of Chicago; Non-Presenting Author: Susan Goldin-Meadow, University of Chicago

• Decontextualized Language in Chinese and American Caregiver-Child Interactions: Similarities, Differences, and Implications for Children’s Narratives - Presenting Author: Ran Wei, Harvard Medical School; Non-Presenting Author: Kathryn Anne Leech, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Non-Presenting Author: Meredith L. Rowe, Harvard University

• Linguistic Qualities of Teacher and Child Contextualized and Decontextualized Talk in Norway - Presenting Author: Ellen Brinchmann, University of Oslo; Non-Presenting Author: Hanne Roe-Indregard, University of Oslo; Non-Presenting Author: Jannicke Karlsen; Non-Presenting Author: Stefan Schauber, University of Oslo; Non-Presenting Author: Bente Hagtvet